It tastes more appetising than it looks, honestly.
In a pan, soften some onion, grated carrot and sliced mushrooms. Add some pork mince and cook through. Make a well, add crushed garlic and chilli. Cook for a few minutes then mix well. Sprinkle in some mixed spice and dried green herbs. Stir through. Add some passata and stock and simmer until rich.
Serve with pasta (and cheese if you wish!)
*Tumble Weed*
Things are very quiet around here again, I do apologize. That’s just life sometimes, eh?
We were having a serious dinner dilemma tonight, we hadn’t taken anything out of the freezer to defrost so had were a bit stumped on what to cook. We settled on a mushroom and potato gratin, and yummy it was. I’m not convinced it was entirely ‘diet friendly’ but the dentist told me to only eat soft foods today, so I’m going to blame her.
Peel and thinly slice enough potatoes for how many people you are feeding, Boil until very nearly done. Meanwhile fry off some mushrooms with some crushed garlic, mustard powder and thyme. Also, whip up a quick cheese sauce, flour, milk, cheese, black pepper. When everything is ready, layer it up in an ovenproof dish. Potatoes, mushroom, cheese sauce, and so on. At the very top at some extra grated cheese, for extra cheesy goodness. We like cheese in this household.
Pop it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes on 180 degrees c. Voila. We served with the very humble…er…fish finger.
Ah. Wok Wednesday has made a return to Old Church cottage.
Tonight we had a Beijing inspired dinner and reminisce. One year ago today we were freezing our bottoms off in Beijing, walking on the Great Wall of China and exploring the cities’ temples, palaces and parks.
We made ‘Back Street’ noodle stir fry and a pot of Chinese green tea in the teapot we brought back from Beijing! ‘Back street’ noodles was beef chow mien from what we think was the local takeaway in our hotels district, it was a one woman show and a delivery boy coming back and for, there were a few tables though so we sat in to eat. In no more than 5 minutes we had a melamine plate stacked high with chow mien! It only cost 60 pence a portion too.
For the stir fry, we first marinated pork steak strips in a oil, lime juice, soy sauce, ginger, chilli, garlic, 5 Spice and honey mixture.
After 15 minutes we set the pork to fry in a wok, then added onion, bell pepper, cabbage, broccoli and carrot, we stir fried this until it was cooked through, then chucked in some noodles and mixed it all together. Ròu sī chǎomiàn! ‘Chǎomiàn’ was probably the only word we managed to use successfully in Beijing.
我爱北京
This is the first time I’ve made Rocky Road but I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out.
In a heavy based pan on a very low heat I melted 125g of butter, 300g milk chocolate and a good squirt of golden syrup. Whilst that melted I bashed up around 200g of digestive biscuits in a sandwich bag. When the mixture was smooth i took it off the heat and added the biscuits and 100g of mini marshmallows. Then folded it all in.
I lined a rectangle dish with foil and poured it in and smoothed it out. Then into the fridge for two two hours to set.
Then chop it up into bitesize chunks or bars. The key to this is sharing I think. It is not in anyway remotely healthy.
Whilst in Jordan we drank this by the gallon, in the desert at night what else does one do aside from listen to bedouin stories and drink tea (and camel milk for that matter).
We bought the ingredients whilst we were there, I ended up bringing back about 600 tea bags and a big bag of mixed herbs. Though I’m sure you can buy them in a world food shop here.
In a pot we brewed ceylon tea, a sprinkle of herbs and loads of sugar. It takes exactly like it did in Jordan.
It’s cold, wet and utterly miserable in South Wales at the moment. It’s much more pleasant to stay in and have warm cookies than attempting to go out.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Beat together 125g of butter, 125g caster sugar and 100g light brown soft sugar in a bowl. Add an egg and some vanilla essence and beat. Sift in 225g self raising flour and a sprinkle of salt. Add some chopped up chocolate and form into a dough.
Grease a baking sheet and form small balls of dough, spread out evenly on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
They will be very soft when they come out of the oven. Leave on the baking tray for a while before transferring on to a cooling rack.
Put rinsed split lentils to boil in a pan of simmering water for 30 minutes.
In a heavy based saucepan, cook some sliced bacon, then add a chopped onion, red pepper, garlic, chilli and ginger. Cook until onion is soft. Add S+P and mixed green herbs.
Chop two small sweet potatoes.
Pour the lentils into the bacon and veg pot, add the sweet potato and add some veg stock, bring back to simmer until the potato is soft. Roughly whizz with a stick blender.
Serve with a little grated cheese if you wish.
Another winter soup, yippee. Leek and potato. When in Wales and all that..
Soften an onion, garlic and leeks in a pan. I also added some pancetta at this point but you can leave it out. Peel and chop a couple of spuds and add them to the pot. Season well with S+P. Cover with vegetable stock and simmer until the potatoes start to fall apart. You can either leave it as a stew or blend until smooth.
1/2 a large butternut squash, 2 large carrots, onion, chill, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, S+P and veg stock.
Soften the onion, ginger, chilli, garlic in a pan. Add cumin and coriander and cook for a further 3 minutes. Add the chopped carrot and butternut squash, S+P. Cover with veg stock and boil until the veg us soft. Blend until smooth.
I added a cheeky bit of extra mature west country cheddar to mine.
We’ve spent the afternoon playing with our new bake stone. For me it conjures up old memories of spending rainy afternoons in with my grandad when I was a child.
We made a few batches of welsh cakes, plain, fruity and chocolate orange. I think I’ll be taking them to work tomorrow before I die of welsh cake associated obesity.
225g self raising flour, 110g salted butter, 1egg, 85g caster sugar, 1/2 tsp mixed spice, extra butter for greasing bake stone.
Fillings – sultanas/chocolate orange/lemon zest..etc etc
Rub the fat into the flour. Add the sugar, mixed spice and filling of choice and then the egg. Mix to combine, then form a ball of dough. Roll out dough on a floured surface until 1/4inch. Cut into rounds. Butter the bakestone. Put it on to a direct heat and wait until it heats up, place the Welsh cakes on the griddle, turn after 2 to 3 minutes. Put onto a cooling rack and sprinkle with caster sugar.
Happy Welsh Cakes!
COTTONTAILS AND CUPCAKES 